1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming method for use in a copying machine for supplying toner from a toner cartridge to form an image, etc.
2. Description of the Related Art
As control for detecting a toner residual amount of a toner cartridge mounted in a copying machine has been hitherto executed such control that EEPROM is mounted at the toner cartridge side, information at the toner cartridge side is read into the copying machine side when powered on, and the numerical value of the amount of toner consumed through a copying/printing job is renewed at needed time and written into EEPROM.
When data are written in EEPROM according to a serial interface style by a copying machine, it is preferable that no resource should be released to other processing from the start of the writing till the end of the writing (preventing occurrence of erroneous data writing). Therefore, the writing executing timing is set so that the writing is executed under the state that the copying machine cannot operate (24V down, jam or the like), and thus information stored in EEPROM of the toner cartridge is not necessarily kept to the latest state.